


Recovery

by thedas_scribe (wshall)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Destroy Ending, Gen, Hospitals, Major Character Injury, Paragon Commander Shepard, Post-Mass Effect 3, Post-Purgatory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-22 17:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9618236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wshall/pseuds/thedas_scribe
Summary: Chronicle of the events that happen immediately after ME3.  Marley Shepard chose to destroy the reapers, and in spite of the destruction, she survived.  Many others did, as well.





	1. Waking

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to share this yet, but if you've played the ME games on mostly paragon, you can get an idea of her main story. This was exploring a few of the things we never see in-game, and how I perceive her to be under all the armor and military professionalism she is so well known for. Not to mention, James has a lot of thoughts about her state.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> immediately post ME3

*gasp.*

The pain shot down her throat, sternum, through her ribs and to her backbone, filling every vertebra on the way down to her pelvis, and down both legs until it reached the tips of her toes. She froze from the shock of its intensity. Slowly opening her eyes, she could see the remnants of the mechanism she'd shot at to cause mass destruction of the Reapers, and several keepers crawling her way. 'oh shit,' she thought. What if she didn't succeed? What if she just blew the place up, and the harvesting machines were still digging at her beloved homeworld? What if the keepers were coming to take her away? The last time she saw one, it was sorting through piles of bodies. She tried to ignore the pain and move onto her knees, but was pinned down by a rebar that had large blocks of concrete on either side of it, one the size of an entire wall. The letters "DIUM" could be seen at the very top of it. 'oh shit...'

A keeper reached her and dropped its arms to its side as it waited for her to stop struggling. "We see you," it said. 

"Are you..." she coughed up a fair amount of blood that kept running down her throat from a laceration on the inside of her cheek. "Are you going to kill me?"

"We are here to help." It opened its omni tool and began to sauter through the rebar that was holding her down. "Please wait."

"Heh." She laughed a little. "Please wait. Not like I can go anywhere." When the rebar lost its tension, it popped straight up, and Marley screamed in agony. 

"Please wait." The keeper began administering medigel directly to the gash that was beneath the bar. 

"Oh God!" the pain was making her sick enough to dry heave. 

"Please wait."

She bit down on the remnants of her base layer's collar to keep from crying out. It broke off like filo off baklava, but she kept it in her mouth, anyway. Anything to keep her from screaming, even if it tasted like blood and burnt leather. Her leg had to be shattered. She forced her thoughts to something less immediate, recalling how people are supposed to go into a state of shock during major traumatic injuries, but so far as she could tell, she was one hundred percent completely there. She could feel everything, hear everything, and see everything. And it was scaring the shit out of her. She'd normally not be afraid of anything, but she was entirely helpless.

"Please wait." The keeper latched its arms around both of her shoulders and drug her down from the pile of cinder and masonry. As they moved, she realized where she was. They were in what was left of the Purgatory entrance. How the hell did they get here? The tower was on the other side of the citadel. She could see earth plain as day, too. Then she saw the faint line of shield barriers that ran down the length of some of the long outstretches, the closer ones emitting from the keepers themselves, as she could see them forming around their tiny backpacks. Every now and then, she'd see a puff of gas or steam emit from the packs. It must have been oxygen or similar. It had to be.

"Oh my God...how many..." How many are dead? How many are still alive? How many keepers are there? Why are they helping us? Why are they even speaking? They were all questions darting back and forth in her mind like the deafening sound of freight trains back on Mindoir. 

The keeper stopped at a cleared area and dropped her next to an asari woman. 

"Shepard?" Not only was it another living person, it was someone she knew.

"Aria?" Shepard began to cry. "Oh my God..."

"Shep, you did it. You fucking did it. And these little shits are keeping this place alive." She patted one on its arm as it strolled away from them, and put her other arm around Shepard's badly injured body.

"Are you...hurt?" Shepard tried to reach for her arm, just to touch her, just to return contact, but her shoulder and neck seized with more unfathomable pain. "Ungh!"

"Don't move, Shep, I got ya. I'm fine. I think I sprained an ankle, but I'll take that over the alternative. You are a fucking hero."

"I don't understand..." All the people who died proved to her that there was nothing heroic about her actions. 

"You won't, friend. You're not the people who could be dead but aren't, like me." Aria gently rested her hand on Shep's bloodied red crop of hair. "Lean into me. Try to get comfortable."

Shepard leaned into her, but steeled herself against emotion as best as she could. "Are...there others?"

"Many others. You know Khalisah Al Jilani? She's already back on earth."

"How..." 

"Through that beam." She pointed at the white light, which was now pointed closer to where they were located. "It moves to different places, and the keepers keep throwing survivors down it. Oh..." Aria handed her a radio. "Tell 'em you're okay. You'll either start a riot or a parade, but tell 'em, anyway."

"Who..." 

"Too many questions, friend. It's a broadcast, completely open lines." Aria pressed the button to open the transmission. "Say something."

"Hackett? Garrus? Anyone? This is Commander Marley Shepard, I'm alive."

"Holy shit!!!!" was one of many responses. "SHEPARD!!!!" Was another. "Where are you?" and "We'll get you down, don't you worry." were others. 

Aria took the radio. "This is Aria T'Loak, the Purgatory is twelve miles closer to the embassies..."

"What?"

"The blast shifted everything to Citadel's north. There are two of us in my position, and nine more living due south of my beacon. Several others all around us."

"Hackett here. What's the status? We've received the beacon and are trying to get to it, now. How are you even alive?" 

"The keepers are helping us."

"What in the sam bloody hell -- nevermind, questions later. We're completing evacs in other stations, but your group is next."

Aria pointed Shepard's attention to the group of officers helping the others south of their location. "See, Shep? They're on the way. We're going to be okay."

Another keeper came to the two of them. "We will help you."

Shepard looked it in the eye. "How are you talking?"

"No old machine. We are not muted."

"Not muted?" Aria laughed forcibly. "Ha! You aren't muted? You mean they had you set to silent? Are you sentient or synthetic?" 

"Sentient. We will help rebuild. Send us down."

Shepard took a breath. "I will. Thank you."

The officers helped Aria up and they started limping forth, while another scooped Shepard into his arms and walked toward the beam. "Thanks for my life, Shepard. I'm Lieutenant Mark Larsen. I'll make sure you survive this." 

Shepard's relief was so intense that she passed out before they got to the beam. Everything went black.


	2. Wave and Wake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shep regains consciousness to a quiet room after several flashes during emergency surgery.

They came in waves. 

Light, eyes trying to open, mind trying to make sense of the blurred people shrouded in blue and white reaching toward her lower body.

"Lay back, Shepard." It was Hackett. "Just hold my hand, we'll get you through this."

Her body tensed up, and she couldn't speak beyond garbled groans, as a tube was taking up the space in her throat. 

A hand pushed down on her sternum, and she sunk into the Marley-sized space in the foam of the bed. More groans. 

Fade to black.

 

Eyes open again, this time, the shrouded people -- doctors, surgeons, nurses -- were working by her left ear. 

High-pitched drills and cold metal. She tried to sit up, but was pushed back into the bed.

"Lay down, Commander," another voice ordered. She couldn't struggle. She was too medicated. Too weak.

Fade to black.

 

Light again, eyes fighting a medicated sleep, tiny shiny sharp objects, warmth of blood on her left side and arm.

"Shepard, look at me. Shepard?" To her right. Admiral Hackett. Still holding her hand. "Eyes on me."

The tube was still there. Everything below her waist was incredibly numb except she could feel every cell in the core  
of her right thigh. More groans.

"You're going to be okay."

Fade to black.

 

Dreams, heavy dreams, the sound of clacking by the ear, rhythmic pushes and pulls of air, tugging of thread through skin in different places. Smells of burn cream and sterile things. 

Wait -- is that chicken? 

The pull of the tube from the throat. A dry gasp for air. 

Silence. 

Voices, familiar and yet distant. The heat of a larger hand holding hers, now. Strength, warmth, an occasional squeeze. Squeeze back.

Eyes open. 

"James?" It sounded more like a cough, but two of the three people in the room heard her loud and clear.

"Marley?" James' attention was completely on his commander, chair butted up against her bed, holding her tiny hand in his. He ran his free hand through the hair on her head that wasn't bandaged, trying to reassure her that everything would be okay, though even he wasn't certain. It was times like these when you forget rank, order, formality, and you treat your team like brothers. Sisters. Family. He had several hours of waiting by Shepard's side to come to terms with the audacity that she was just as human as he was. 

Dr. Chloe Michel picked up a plastic cup of ice water and held the straw to Shepard's mouth, carefully avoiding the line of stitches that crossed both of her lips, and allowed her to drink. "Slow sips, Commander, don't need you getting brain freeze, right now." 

Marley finished and let her head drop back into the pillow, James' hand sandwiched between the two, gently rubbing the back of her neck. "I dunno, Michel, brain freeze might feel good right now." She looked around the room from her limited vantage point and spied Admiral Hackett stretched out and fast asleep in a chair by the door, his hat partially covering his eyes. "Doesn't he have things to do?" 

"He passed it on to another officer," James answered her as he wiped fresh blood that oozed from a row of stitches that crossed the bridge of her nose. "He wanted to be here when you woke up." 

"Where's the crew?" 

"Nobody knows." James' grip on her hand grew tighter. "Lost contact with a lot of ships. They've sent parties out, but I'm sure they're okay."

"They better be,"

"You got 'em this far, I'm sure they're okay. Wherever they are, they're together. They got each other."

"What about me?" Marley looked up at Michel, who was rewrapping a bandage she didn't like. 

"You? Nothing you won't recover from. Broken right femur and left collar bone, only second degree burns on the left side, a few deep tissue burns. Your arm took most of the heat. Stitches on your face, and a lot of small lacerations. We're anticipating you'll be fully recovered in six to eight weeks."

"That's it?" 

"Well..." Dr. Michel readjusted the heavy, warm bedding that covered Marley's body. "How do you feel mentally?" 

"I'm glad it's over." 

"And?"

"And...I guess I have time to think about everything?" She asked.

"Exactly. It is what we're worried about."

The clacking of crutches down the hallway got closer and closer until it stopped in the doorway. "I'll make sure she stays busy, Chloe." It was Aria. 

"Savior." Marley smiled wryly at her. 

"Savior of the savior? Ha." Aria made her way to the foot of the bed and handed Dr. Michel a bag full of boxes of all shapes. "Go through this, and give it out as she's able." Dr. Michel looked inside and smiled. "Oh, wonderful!" Marley raised an eyebrow at Dr. Michel's look of surprise. "Not yet, Marley. These are definitely for later."

"What is it?" James and Marley asked the same thing with the same inquisitive tone.

"You'll find out when you're ready."

"And Shepard? I have to go, but we have my boys looking for any sign of the Normandy while they look for their own."

"Thank you Aria, it means a lot."


	3. Cloves and Distractions

January 22, 2187 CE (EST 0515)  
Hi, diary, how long has it been? I told myself a long time ago that I would never keep us separated for more than a day, and if we were, I’d write on something else and insert them in with you in the right order. We started this three years ago, and I committed - and you know how committed I am to things I believe in. 

(scribbled out words) 

I think it’s impossible that I’m even writing this, with all that happened almost a month ago. I was almost killed. Again…

(more scribbled out words, a teardrop smudged the end of it)

I I don’t want to talk about it right now. But I am alive, and that’s really all I wanted to say.

–

Marley Shepard closed the thick navy blue leather-bound journal, stuffed with pages of various sizes and colors, folded and stored as neatly as she could make them, put it at the edge of the rolling tray, and set the pen on its cover. It smelled of sweet things: rose, lavender, cinnamon, vanilla…just enough so that you could imagine some pages were deliberately scented. James Vega, who sat in the chair at the far corner of the hospital room, found it peculiar, as his Commander wasn’t at all a girly girl. Sure, she had a knock-out body and she took great care of herself, and even wore makeup, but she never once gave any inclination that she was into scented paper. He pondered what kind of prank he could pull on her with that discovery. But to him, she always smelled like sweet peppery cinnamon…no, what is it called? 

“Clove,” he mumbled out loud.

Marley, Doctors Liara T'Soni and Karin Chakwas, and Jeff “Joker” Moreau all looked at him. 

“Oh,” he backed away, verbally, stating “nothing, sorry.” He revered his Commander. All five feet, six inches, 136 pounds of her. She was small in stature, but “tight” by muscular structure, with round rocks for shoulders and horseshoe triceps. Even her legs were well defined. She wasn’t cut like he was, but she looked like she worked out. She had a pixie crop of reddish brown curls, half wrapped away under bandages and burn cream, blackened but healing teal eyes that normally levied an understanding beyond someone of her age (32), soft curved cheeks and lips that seemed to edge upward in a smile. Even when she was frustrated, she always seemed to have a hopeful look about her. Her wide-bridged nose, currently taped due to being broken, sloped straight into a round tip that often wriggled when she spoke, which made his inner child giggle with glee. at how adorable she looked. He was thankful that she didn’t know that he thought that way. He wasn’t in love love with her, but he did adore her. She was his hero, and not for the things he was thinking about. In moments like this, he often wondered how someone of her background could keep her wits about her and be so compassionate and capable of doing the things she had done. After all, he still couldn’t even talk about Fehl Prime.

“Nothing, Lieutenant?” Marley’s inquisitive response was one he wasn’t sure how to reply.

“Well, I can smell your journal from over here, and it reminded me that I notice you smell like cloves.” There was a long pause, and Joker let out a chuckle. "I mean, not the cigarettes or anything like that…just…the clove things. Like cinnamon and pepper or something…nevermind.“ He chose to sit in the far corner of the room for a reason, primarily because he was too worried about her to be more than just present. He almost felt helpless for her. There in that hospital bed was one of the strongest and bravest people he knew, burned, bruised, and broken in so many places. And her half-bandaged head was hanging low. 

Until he said "cloves.” 

“I smell like cloves, huh…” She’d been told that, before, but wanted to make sure she heard him right, and that he was the one saying it. The big hulk of a man sitting noticeably far away from her, in a skin-tight faded red shirt and baggy black cargo pants, sitting with tension throughout his muscular body, was displaying every sign of awkwardness that she’d ever seen. 

He owned his slip, to her amusement. "Yes, ma'am. And cloves smell very nice.“

"I’ve heard that before, and thank you for the compliment.” She smiled and nodded earnestly at him. As simple as the exchange was, it was a desperately needed distraction. She savored the moment as it was.

“You’re welcome…ma'am.” He withdrew from the subject, turning his attention to the view from the second floor window. “I still can’t believe you talked Admiral Hackett into letting some of the keepers come down here during the recovery effort.”

“Yes, yes I did,” Marley welcomed the unfolding diversion with open arms. "It was the second thing I said to him when his team escorted me from the station.“

Jeff leaned forward in his chair, which was immediately to the right of Marley’s bed. His curiosity was clear as he interjected, "I still can’t believe you got them to communicate with us.”

“What was the first thing you said, if I may ask?” Dr. Chakwas turned away from the three-dimensional x-ray images on the wall-sized screen across from the bed.

Marley’s smile grew bigger. "I asked him if we were successful, and then I said ‘let the keepers come, too, we’re going to need them’.“ She reserved almost all of her emotions, save for when the time required it or if she absolutely trusted whomever she was talking to, always preferring actions to words, but she knew how to negotiate in tense situations. "When I realized I was alive I…” but she never felt so helpless than when she first woke after opting to outright destroy the Reapers. It was a moment she’d prepared for, finding closure with everyone she loved and every event she’d lived through. But the moments after all was done, though hazy, were still in her mind. 

This was something she felt a desire to share, and the room hosted people she trusted with her life. It would be an emotional discussion, so she readied herself the best she could by taking some paper tissues out of the box on her tray. 

“My ears were deafened from the explosion. My eyes were light-blind, and everything was dark…” her voice, which she normally spoke with the deeper ends of her range, even macho according to James’ interpretation, was shaky and soft. Still, but shaky soft. "I remember hearing creaking metal, the smell of dead bodies and electricity, my own burnt hair, my blood…“ 

It was the first time in many years that she let more than one tear fall in front of people. She let one out earlier, but only one, and to Marley, that didn’t count. One tear was a body function, not an act of emotion. This time, there were many. "I could breathe, but I was stuck. I had a re-bar pinning my leg down, and I couldn’t move. Then this keeper shows up and says 'we see you, we will help’ and starts sautering it in half right there. So I said 'you understand me?’ and it said 'we understand you.’ So I asked it 'what are you going to do?’ and it told me 'we will rebuild. We always rebuild.’ She sighed and looked down, 'then it said they could help rebuild earth, since the light beam still worked.’ It pulled me out of the wreckage and to a spot where I could see why I was still able to breathe. There had to be a hundred of them - maybe more. They had turned on the environmental shield generator that cover the area that the beam to earth was around, so none of us would implode.”

“But how?” Jeff asked. "That place was decimated – especially at the center!“ 

"You know their little backpacks? They carry generators in them.”

“Really?” Dr. T'Soni added. "That’s quite amazing.“ 

"I know, and there are so many of them that if the Citadel were to burn…well, like it did…they could keep the environment sustained and still have enough keepers left to administer medical help.” Marley huffed in a half-laugh. "They really do take care of that place.“

Dr. T'Soni was so curious about the keepers. They were a side hobby, next to the Prothean research. "Did you ask them why they have always been so quiet?” 

“They weren’t allowed to speak. It was the "old machine” that kept them quiet.“

T'Soni paused for a moment, and then looked down and away. "Oh, that’s very sad. I don’t think I could live without being able to communicate.” 

“Wait,” Jeff again, inquisitive as ever. "Did they actually confirm this?“

"Yes. They confirmed it.” The tears were gone, to Marley’s inner relief. Her crew seemed to collectively avoid the hard parts of the events and focus on what might be dubbed 'cooler’ ones. 

“Gentlemen,” Dr. Chakwas spoke up, “The Commander’s visitation hour is coming to a close, and I regret I must ask you to wrap things up.”

“No problem, Doctor,” Jeff said, getting up slowly and safely.

James popped up like a slice of toast out of a toaster. "Alright. Joker, Kadera’s?“ 

Jeff grinned. Kadera’s Cafe was his favorite cafe in that area of London – a corner coffee house with rustic ceramic mugs and a real cappuccino maker from the turn of the millennium – and great hamburgers with real Angus beef, none of that synthetic stuff. "Kadera’s it is.” He looked up at Dr. T'Soni. "Liara, wanna join us? They have that shrimp soup that you love…“

Marley gave Dr. T'Soni a permissive look, and the Doctor replied, "I believe I will, thank you.”

The two men bade farewell to their Commander, and Liara hugged her gently before all three of them left the room, leaving Dr. Chakwas to finish a report she was working on. 

“You’ve built a great team, Commander,” she said. "Your dedication to them has reaped you a benefit unsurpassed, and that benefit is loyalty. They love you.“ She turned away from the images on the screen and looked Marley in the eyes. "And I love you. I am relieved you’re still with us.”

Marley could feel the emotions building up, but quickly checked them. "I am grateful for them, Dr. Chakwas. Grateful for you. Their being here isn’t just on me, it’s on them, too. They’re a strong team.“

"And with that, I must go tend to other patients. Your progress is good, believe it or not. You should be able to remove those bandages, this week. It’s ashame we couldn’t get medigel on it, sooner, or you’d already be healed, except for that leg and collarbone. I expect three more week,s at least, for those breaks to be healed.”

“Yeah…” Marley huffed another laugh. "I can do a lot of things, but supporting fifteen hundred pounds of cinder with my femur is not one of them.“

Dr. Chakwas laughed. "I suppose you’re right. It’s good to see you finding a laugh, right now. It will help the healing.” She turned for the door. "Get some rest, Commander.“

Then it was quiet. From her view in the bed, it looked mostly normal. Dr. Chakwas made a point to put her in a room not facing the remains of the Citadel, as she was aware that the emotional and mental trauma that the Commander dealt with may be affected by such a view. All Marley could see was a blue sky, treetops, and a couple of buildings that weren’t physically affected by what happened – and yes, some buildings were miraculously still in tact, for some reason. 

She opened her journal, again, and began to write.

It was on fire  
And everything was trapped in the flames  
The globe glowing in bright orange trails  
To see it crawling with purple death machines,  
And to know that I could do nothing  
But that we could do everything  
And we got me there so I could end it  
And those overlooked salvaged my live  
So that I could go back to those who sent me.


End file.
